Blockchain configurations provide secure storage for transactions which have been logged in a blockchain. The immutable structure of the blockchain is desirable for financial transactions which require various types of information for security purposes. In general, any blockchain configuration can grow quickly in size and may be too large for certain computing resources associated with certain networks and users.
Blockchains are, by design, a back-linked list, which allow new blocks of information to be chained onto the latest block. There are no user accounts or controlling servers, so no single entity can revise the collective blockchain for their own advantage. Each time a change is made to a blockchain, it is an appended update, not a modification update, and such an update requires the full history of changes in order to validate any future proposed transaction. Each update to a blockchain should also be verified cryptographically, which typically requires a substantial amount of computer processing resources. This situation is not ideal for devices with limited memory or computing resources, which may not able to handle multiple concurrent blockchain entries or “conversations”.
Entities using a blockchain-type ledger may find that the public worldwide blockchain is too slow, large, or expensive for their own utilization. To help mitigate this issue, they may wish to use private distributed ledgers, also known as private blockchains. There are methods that exist for linking off-chain transactions back to a master/parent blockchain, most notably the effort referred to as sidechains, however these implementations are all based around a common currency/token, and operate by summarizing the off-chain transactions so that they can be carried out after-the-fact. However, such an approach does not work well for entities using private blockchains for uses other than transferring ownership of currency. Even private ‘off-blockchain’ blockchain transactions do not have an established method for marking the conclusion of a series of transactions, which can be costly in terms of computation cycles, resources, and money, for interested parties. By its very nature, a private blockchain should be easily finalized, abandoned and/or absorbed into a different blockchain when the participants agree to such a result.